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So, another Super Bowl gone. For those who advertised during the Super Bowl, the average cost of a Super Bowl ad this year was $3.5 million to promote their brand in front of 111 million viewers. For those counting, that’s $116,000 per second. Back in 2008 I looked at how much content marketing you could buy for the price of a Super Bowl ad. That bought you A LOT of content. million. MORE

Ever since people have had something to sell, we’ve been marketing. But the effectiveness of those marketing methods have waxed and waned over thousands of years, and as consumers and their technologies advanced at a more and more rapid pace, marketers have had to change their game. It’s up to marketers to keep pace in this cluttered, fast-paced world if they want their message heard. MORE

She will be moderating a panel discussion, Integrating Mobile Campaigns for the Complex Sale , at the MarketingSherpa B2B Email Summit this Wednesday in Las Vegas. I caught up with her to preview the discussion and reveal what she expects to be some key takeaways. There’s an immediacy to mobile that captures an audience as they move through their day, especially busy executives. Testing. MORE

“What do we want?”. It is the question marketers (and managers) ask each time they consider launching a new project or solving a business question. Answering it is a must if you want to develop a proper strategy. Define the goals, analyze the best ways to achieve them, determine how to measure success, launch, [.]. Blog Customer-centricity customer-centric Kristin Zhivago touch points MORE

While many people have been hoping to get some resolution to the question of who owns the followers of a Twitter account from the ongoing litigation between PhoneDog and its former employee Noah Kravitz , this federal case in the Northern District of California is unlikely to provide clear answers. Thus, the dispute is moving away from who owns the Twitter account. PhoneDog Lawsuit. Emmel, D.C. MORE

If you missed it, here is the our awesome 2012 kickoff show featuring the Celebrity CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett. Compliments of the global marketing firm, Find New Customers. You can learn about the show host, Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, by visiting his AboutMe profile. Saddle Up and Run the Gauntlet! Interviews & Guest Appearances Mad Marketing TV MORE

Sometimes it seems like marketers in the trenches, marketing leaders and our agency partners are all talking different languages. We’re not on the same page… We should all be working toward the same goal of growing our businesses by meeting customer needs. That was the open-ended portion of the study and it evolved just about how we might think. The Parable Of The Monkey Tree. Strateg MORE

by Jesse Noyes | Tweet this Ernest Hemingway is one of the best writers of all time, but a great content marketer? Sure, Hemingway wasn’t out to warm up leads or sell a product. Well, maybe books.) Still, Hemingway’s writing process reveals great tips for content marketing. Below we suggest some words of wisdom from Hemingway you can apply to your content marketing process. 1. Don’t Over Think It. “…I learned not to think about anything I was writing from the time I stopped writing until I started again the next day.”. Hemingway learned how to turn off. Get Good Editors. Ezra Pound. MORE

Which is better? 50 qualified social media followers , or 1,000 followers, many of whom will never buy from you ? The answer may surprise you. In social media, reach is of critical importance. In other words, in an online world, social reach shouldn't be a trivial factor for businesses leveraging inbound marketing. So, have you figured out what the right answer to our first question is yet? MORE

Tweet That’s the word from our own Brian Carroll, who made that proclamation in an interview at the MarketingSherpa Email Summit this week. Paradoxically, this is why it’s critical to be strategic. He explains there’s a lot of ways to acquire leads, but there’s no determining which ones work best without testing. But what compounds the situation is that marketers don’t have the time or resources to test every potential tactic. This is why Carroll advises looking at marketing like a portfolio manager looks at a mutual fund. They analyze the financial marketplace. MORE

Next week is Valentine's Day. While we're sharing a little love for some of our favorite blog posts today, we're also sending out some virtual XO's to all our fellow B2B bloggers, our clients, and everyone else who brightens our days. Wishing each of you an early warm & fuzzy Valentine's Day. Be good to your loved ones - and yourself! It’s Not What You Sell - It’s How You Sell It by @ InboundSales. Find out why your ability to make a sale is increasingly about delivering a buying experience that woos and wows prospects and customers. Noticing a theme? MORE

So you wanna start prospecting into the mining industry, huh (no pun intended)? Well, you came to the right place. Grab yourself something to drink and have a seat, because do I have a story for you. No seriously, this is going to take awhile. You might want to get a snack, too. To begin with, the most important thing to understand about the mining industry is that it has seen a lot of hardship in the past few years. Mining was one of the hardest hit industries during the recession, and a significant number of companies are still struggling just to stay afloat. It’s time to get mapping! MORE

I bumped into my good friend Chris Baggott from Compendium yesterday at the Online Marketing Summit. Every conference we run into each other at, Chris pulls me aside and says, “Joe, here we are at this INSERT NAME conference and a content marketing conference has broken out” The point? Everyone is talking content marketing these days. It didn’t used to be the case. Enjoy! MORE

While the use of blogging as a marketing and communications platform continues to grow for many organizations, you still might be facing this question from your boss — “Why are we doing this?” ” The most obvious answer is that you are ultimately trying to influence some behavior or attitude. You want your readers to buy, register, understand, donate, attend, etc. MORE

Trying to market yourself is kind of like being a mom. No matter what you do, you never think it's enough. And, when something goes wrong, you tend to blame yourself - first, last, and always. should have paid more attention. should have corrected that error before it went out. should have - if I were on top of my game- I would have. You're doing what you are able to do right now. MORE

Chris Koch shared Four Reasons to Hate Thought Leadership earlier this week. He made some great points in his call to end the use of the phrase thought leadership, but ultimately I disagree with his conclusion. We don’t need to stop using the phrase, we need to start using it right. The problem is thought leadership has become a catchall for any marketing that includes content. Unfortunately, looking back, it isn’t surprising that this happened. Here are four of the underlying problems that created the situation. 1. Marketing can facilitate, organize and amplify. MORE

by Jason Miller Your company and its employees are on Linkedin, but are you optimizing their presence? read a recent article from Search Engine Land that talked about the link between Search Engine Optimization and Linkedin. It was a fascinating look at how a properly optimized Linkedin page, both company and employees’, can boost SEO and organic visibility. Click for full image. MORE

I volunteer as sous chef at a Washington, DC , homeless kitchen. They serve fresh, organic dinners to folks who really need a healthy meal. Miriam’s Kitchen treats everyone who dines there as respected and honored guests. have learned a lot about how to be a much better social media marketer as a direct result of working both in the kitchen as a sous chef and also as dining room captain. Can MORE

When it comes to your business-to-business website, it’s important to establish credibility and trust with site visitors. You’ve invested in search engine optimization and lots of great, relevant content so that your prospects can find you online. But what is really happening once a prospect lands on your B2B website? Do they see you as credible? Trustworthy? MORE

The Savvy Sisters are big fans of the guys at BaseOne in London. They are frequently featured in our Friday Wrap Up and so when they put out this eBook on The Big 5 Mistakes that B2B Companies make on their website , I knew it would be good. It was so good in fact that it was basically a stroll down memory lane for past client projects! Stop the insanity. MORE

What can you learn about blog writing and content marketing from the theater? As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve attended local theater productions, including performances on The Naked Stage. Photos courtesy Stuart Miles ). Hence the name, Naked Stage : the presentation is devoid of any of the usual visual aids. In one of these performances, the narrator yelled, “GUN SHOT!” MORE

5 Ways to Differentiate Your Company in a Highly Competitive Marketplace (click on title to register for this webinar). Date: February 15, 2012 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST Presented by True Influence (“hand selected” Jeff as speaker for this event.). Overview. With prospects drinking from the fire-hose of content every day, their fingers hover over the Delete key. Some actual case studies. MORE

Image via Wikipedia. In my most recent article, Boost Demand Generation Using Target Ready Buyer Models , a comment was posted by the ever thoughtful Eric Wittlake, author of the blog B2B Digital Marketing and a member of the team at the Integrated B2B Marketing Agency – Babcock and Jenkins. This comment really got me thinking. Organization Infrastructure. Research and Insight. MORE

Authentic. You can’t turn around in the social media echo chamber without bumping into this word. The problem is, beyond the social media land of unicorns, authentic isn’t relevant. As I explored in Don’t Be Authentic: Real Social Media Marketing Advice on SpinSucks , we don’t really want to see authentic in social media. Authentic is the wrong objective. MORE

The rise of social media has made crowdsourcing all the rage. Why read the opinions of just one person when you can get the 4-1-1 from a whole host of experts all in one place? But wrangling all those opinions can be a bit tricky. This week the Savvy Sisters share their best tips for crowdsourcing the pros - like a pro! Heather. Ask for a little - Get A Lot! Wendy. The Great and Powerful Internet. MORE

In a phone call this week I was swapping war stories with a well-known sales and marketing consultant, who, like us, works with B2B companies to improve their return on marketing automation. In the case of our agency , though we still get our fair share of calls from companies who find themselves saddled with what amounts to an expensive email broadcast system, a growing percentage of our engagements are with companies who have yet to even purchase the software. And that fact, I would propose, is a good sign for a maturing market. emphasis mine). No, not necessarily. MORE

You may have noticed that I’ve changed the name of my blog. I’ve changed it for two reasons. First, because I’ve left ITSMA and joined SAP , where I will focus on marketing the good ideas of the many subject matter experts there. I’m going to share my experiences in helping to build an engine for developing and disseminating good ideas for SAP (with names changed to protect the innocent and guilty alike). I won’t be focusing on B2B marketing in the broadest sense anymore; I’ll be narrowing things to idea marketing (and the role that social media play in it). MORE

Content creation is central to your inbound marketing success, but as your volume of written content increases, inconsistencies are also bound to arise. That's why most companies that rely on content as a central part of their marketing strategy develop an editorial style guide. Section 1: Grammar. Decide which established style manual you will follow. For example: What do you capitalize? Academic. MORE

If you can’t see this video, click here: Anne Reuss on social media and accessibility. Stop what you’re doing and watch this short video. In under two minutes, you will receive a very powerful message. When I first connected with Anne Reuss on Twitter, of course I didn’t know she was deaf. But I did notice that she was looking for a job, so I did what I could to help her. Twitter. MORE

There was a recent exchange on twitter where a prominent, intelligent and well-respected analyst predicted that content marketing will destroy social media. mean “Whoa!”…The ”…The power of content marketing! The suggestion was that content marketing will result in the rapid erosion of the sacred trust we all have in the established media. Is it blurring? chiprodgers. MORE

I’m a student of history … probably half the books I read are biographies or something to do with a past era. So today I’d like you to oblige me while I connect the dots between the social media revolution and what appears to be increasing political paralysis in the U.S., India, Greece, and other nations. How might we explain the change? There is a certain beauty in this. MORE

The democratization of publishing through the social web is probably the most significant political, economic, and sociological force of our generation. But we have only seen it begin to coalesce into a political force in the past 12 months. During Arab Spring, it was a unifying force to overthrow dictators. Last month, the web’s united stand stopped proposed legislation in the U.S. MORE

Reports, surveys, studies and infographics are among the most popular content posted and shared across social networks. We’re all hungry for data. Marketers, we’re told, need to think like publishers. But which networks are most effective for spreading the content produced? How widespread, really, is the use of social media for marketing? Who is actually consuming all of this content? MORE

By Srinivas Rao, Contributing {grow} Columnist. While it’s tempting to see ourselves as marketers, what we’re really doing is creating art. Through our digital footprints we’re attempting to create our personal masterpieces and leave a mark on humanity. The Novice. As a novice you look to experts, mentors, and those who have come before you for advice. The Mechanic. The Artist. The Entrepreneur. MORE

I recently conducted a poll on LinkedIn asking respondents what they believe should be the #1 priority in 2012 for generating leads in B2B firms. The poll was promoted throughout LinkedIn Groups; a mix of b2b marketing and sales groups that I am a member of. I received 172 votes and the results were quite interesting. Great content is the fuel to social media messaging, sharing, and engagement. MORE

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Authentic. You can’t turn around in the social media echo chamber without bumping into this word. The problem is, beyond the social media land of unicorns, authentic isn’t relevant. As I explored in Don’t Be Authentic: Real Social Media Marketing Advice on SpinSucks , we don’t really want to see authentic in social media. Authentic is the wrong objective.

Image via Wikipedia. In my most recent article, Boost Demand Generation Using Target Ready Buyer Models , a comment was posted by the ever thoughtful Eric Wittlake, author of the blog B2B Digital Marketing and a member of the team at the Integrated B2B Marketing Agency – Babcock and Jenkins. This comment really got me thinking. Organization Infrastructure. Research and Insight.

I recently conducted a poll on LinkedIn asking respondents what they believe should be the #1 priority in 2012 for generating leads in B2B firms. The poll was promoted throughout LinkedIn Groups; a mix of b2b marketing and sales groups that I am a member of. I received 172 votes and the results were quite interesting. Great content is the fuel to social media messaging, sharing, and engagement.

There was a recent exchange on twitter where a prominent, intelligent and well-respected analyst predicted that content marketing will destroy social media. mean “Whoa!”…The ”…The power of content marketing! The suggestion was that content marketing will result in the rapid erosion of the sacred trust we all have in the established media. Is it blurring? chiprodgers.

Reports, surveys, studies and infographics are among the most popular content posted and shared across social networks. We’re all hungry for data. Marketers, we’re told, need to think like publishers. But which networks are most effective for spreading the content produced? How widespread, really, is the use of social media for marketing? Who is actually consuming all of this content?

“What do we want?”. It is the question marketers (and managers) ask each time they consider launching a new project or solving a business question. Answering it is a must if you want to develop a proper strategy. Define the goals, analyze the best ways to achieve them, determine how to measure success, launch, [.]. Blog Customer-centricity customer-centric Kristin Zhivago touch points

While the use of blogging as a marketing and communications platform continues to grow for many organizations, you still might be facing this question from your boss — “Why are we doing this?” ” The most obvious answer is that you are ultimately trying to influence some behavior or attitude. You want your readers to buy, register, understand, donate, attend, etc.

She will be moderating a panel discussion, Integrating Mobile Campaigns for the Complex Sale , at the MarketingSherpa B2B Email Summit this Wednesday in Las Vegas. I caught up with her to preview the discussion and reveal what she expects to be some key takeaways. There’s an immediacy to mobile that captures an audience as they move through their day, especially busy executives. Testing.

Chris Koch shared Four Reasons to Hate Thought Leadership earlier this week. He made some great points in his call to end the use of the phrase thought leadership, but ultimately I disagree with his conclusion. We don’t need to stop using the phrase, we need to start using it right. The problem is thought leadership has become a catchall for any marketing that includes content. Unfortunately, looking back, it isn’t surprising that this happened. Here are four of the underlying problems that created the situation. 1. Marketing can facilitate, organize and amplify.

Ever since people have had something to sell, we’ve been marketing. But the effectiveness of those marketing methods have waxed and waned over thousands of years, and as consumers and their technologies advanced at a more and more rapid pace, marketers have had to change their game. It’s up to marketers to keep pace in this cluttered, fast-paced world if they want their message heard.

25 B2B marketing thought leaders answer the question "What do you expect to B2B marketers to be doing more of or differently in 2016?" The results are amazing insights around content marketing, achieving business results, alignment, employee advocacy, new technologies, customer experience and more.

You may have noticed that I’ve changed the name of my blog. I’ve changed it for two reasons. First, because I’ve left ITSMA and joined SAP , where I will focus on marketing the good ideas of the many subject matter experts there. I’m going to share my experiences in helping to build an engine for developing and disseminating good ideas for SAP (with names changed to protect the innocent and guilty alike). I won’t be focusing on B2B marketing in the broadest sense anymore; I’ll be narrowing things to idea marketing (and the role that social media play in it).

There was a recent exchange on twitter where a prominent, intelligent and well-respected analyst predicted that content marketing will destroy social media. mean “Whoa!”…The ”…The power of content marketing! The suggestion was that content marketing will result in the rapid erosion of the sacred trust we all have in the established media. Is it blurring? chiprodgers.

Reports, surveys, studies and infographics are among the most popular content posted and shared across social networks. We’re all hungry for data. Marketers, we’re told, need to think like publishers. But which networks are most effective for spreading the content produced? How widespread, really, is the use of social media for marketing? Who is actually consuming all of this content?

“What do we want?”. It is the question marketers (and managers) ask each time they consider launching a new project or solving a business question. Answering it is a must if you want to develop a proper strategy. Define the goals, analyze the best ways to achieve them, determine how to measure success, launch, [.]. Blog Customer-centricity customer-centric Kristin Zhivago touch points

Sometimes it seems like marketers in the trenches, marketing leaders and our agency partners are all talking different languages. We’re not on the same page… We should all be working toward the same goal of growing our businesses by meeting customer needs. That was the open-ended portion of the study and it evolved just about how we might think. The Parable Of The Monkey Tree. Strateg

By Srinivas Rao, Contributing {grow} Columnist. While it’s tempting to see ourselves as marketers, what we’re really doing is creating art. Through our digital footprints we’re attempting to create our personal masterpieces and leave a mark on humanity. The Novice. As a novice you look to experts, mentors, and those who have come before you for advice. The Mechanic. The Artist. The Entrepreneur.

So you wanna start prospecting into the mining industry, huh (no pun intended)? Well, you came to the right place. Grab yourself something to drink and have a seat, because do I have a story for you. No seriously, this is going to take awhile. You might want to get a snack, too. To begin with, the most important thing to understand about the mining industry is that it has seen a lot of hardship in the past few years. Mining was one of the hardest hit industries during the recession, and a significant number of companies are still struggling just to stay afloat. It’s time to get mapping!

Next week is Valentine's Day. While we're sharing a little love for some of our favorite blog posts today, we're also sending out some virtual XO's to all our fellow B2B bloggers, our clients, and everyone else who brightens our days. Wishing each of you an early warm & fuzzy Valentine's Day. Be good to your loved ones - and yourself! It’s Not What You Sell - It’s How You Sell It by @ InboundSales. Find out why your ability to make a sale is increasingly about delivering a buying experience that woos and wows prospects and customers. Noticing a theme?

The rise of social media has made crowdsourcing all the rage. Why read the opinions of just one person when you can get the 4-1-1 from a whole host of experts all in one place? But wrangling all those opinions can be a bit tricky. This week the Savvy Sisters share their best tips for crowdsourcing the pros - like a pro! Heather. Ask for a little - Get A Lot! Wendy. The Great and Powerful Internet.

The Savvy Sisters are big fans of the guys at BaseOne in London. They are frequently featured in our Friday Wrap Up and so when they put out this eBook on The Big 5 Mistakes that B2B Companies make on their website , I knew it would be good. It was so good in fact that it was basically a stroll down memory lane for past client projects! Stop the insanity.

So, another Super Bowl gone. For those who advertised during the Super Bowl, the average cost of a Super Bowl ad this year was $3.5 million to promote their brand in front of 111 million viewers. For those counting, that’s $116,000 per second. Back in 2008 I looked at how much content marketing you could buy for the price of a Super Bowl ad. That bought you A LOT of content. million.

Content creation is central to your inbound marketing success, but as your volume of written content increases, inconsistencies are also bound to arise. That's why most companies that rely on content as a central part of their marketing strategy develop an editorial style guide. Section 1: Grammar. Decide which established style manual you will follow. For example: What do you capitalize? Academic.

If you can’t see this video, click here: Anne Reuss on social media and accessibility. Stop what you’re doing and watch this short video. In under two minutes, you will receive a very powerful message. When I first connected with Anne Reuss on Twitter, of course I didn’t know she was deaf. But I did notice that she was looking for a job, so I did what I could to help her. Twitter.

What can you learn about blog writing and content marketing from the theater? As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve attended local theater productions, including performances on The Naked Stage. Photos courtesy Stuart Miles ). Hence the name, Naked Stage : the presentation is devoid of any of the usual visual aids. In one of these performances, the narrator yelled, “GUN SHOT!”

by Jesse Noyes | Tweet this Ernest Hemingway is one of the best writers of all time, but a great content marketer? Sure, Hemingway wasn’t out to warm up leads or sell a product. Well, maybe books.) Still, Hemingway’s writing process reveals great tips for content marketing. Below we suggest some words of wisdom from Hemingway you can apply to your content marketing process. 1. Don’t Over Think It. “…I learned not to think about anything I was writing from the time I stopped writing until I started again the next day.”. Hemingway learned how to turn off. Get Good Editors. Ezra Pound.

5 Ways to Differentiate Your Company in a Highly Competitive Marketplace (click on title to register for this webinar). Date: February 15, 2012 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST Presented by True Influence (“hand selected” Jeff as speaker for this event.). Overview. With prospects drinking from the fire-hose of content every day, their fingers hover over the Delete key. Some actual case studies.

I bumped into my good friend Chris Baggott from Compendium yesterday at the Online Marketing Summit. Every conference we run into each other at, Chris pulls me aside and says, “Joe, here we are at this INSERT NAME conference and a content marketing conference has broken out” The point? Everyone is talking content marketing these days. It didn’t used to be the case. Enjoy!

Which is better? 50 qualified social media followers , or 1,000 followers, many of whom will never buy from you ? The answer may surprise you. In social media, reach is of critical importance. In other words, in an online world, social reach shouldn't be a trivial factor for businesses leveraging inbound marketing. So, have you figured out what the right answer to our first question is yet?

by Jason Miller Your company and its employees are on Linkedin, but are you optimizing their presence? read a recent article from Search Engine Land that talked about the link between Search Engine Optimization and Linkedin. It was a fascinating look at how a properly optimized Linkedin page, both company and employees’, can boost SEO and organic visibility. Click for full image.

The democratization of publishing through the social web is probably the most significant political, economic, and sociological force of our generation. But we have only seen it begin to coalesce into a political force in the past 12 months. During Arab Spring, it was a unifying force to overthrow dictators. Last month, the web’s united stand stopped proposed legislation in the U.S.

While many people have been hoping to get some resolution to the question of who owns the followers of a Twitter account from the ongoing litigation between PhoneDog and its former employee Noah Kravitz , this federal case in the Northern District of California is unlikely to provide clear answers. Thus, the dispute is moving away from who owns the Twitter account. PhoneDog Lawsuit. Emmel, D.C.

I’m a student of history … probably half the books I read are biographies or something to do with a past era. So today I’d like you to oblige me while I connect the dots between the social media revolution and what appears to be increasing political paralysis in the U.S., India, Greece, and other nations. How might we explain the change? There is a certain beauty in this.

Tweet That’s the word from our own Brian Carroll, who made that proclamation in an interview at the MarketingSherpa Email Summit this week. Paradoxically, this is why it’s critical to be strategic. He explains there’s a lot of ways to acquire leads, but there’s no determining which ones work best without testing. But what compounds the situation is that marketers don’t have the time or resources to test every potential tactic. This is why Carroll advises looking at marketing like a portfolio manager looks at a mutual fund. They analyze the financial marketplace.

I volunteer as sous chef at a Washington, DC , homeless kitchen. They serve fresh, organic dinners to folks who really need a healthy meal. Miriam’s Kitchen treats everyone who dines there as respected and honored guests. have learned a lot about how to be a much better social media marketer as a direct result of working both in the kitchen as a sous chef and also as dining room captain. Can

If you missed it, here is the our awesome 2012 kickoff show featuring the Celebrity CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett. Compliments of the global marketing firm, Find New Customers. You can learn about the show host, Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, by visiting his AboutMe profile. Saddle Up and Run the Gauntlet! Interviews & Guest Appearances Mad Marketing TV

In a phone call this week I was swapping war stories with a well-known sales and marketing consultant, who, like us, works with B2B companies to improve their return on marketing automation. In the case of our agency , though we still get our fair share of calls from companies who find themselves saddled with what amounts to an expensive email broadcast system, a growing percentage of our engagements are with companies who have yet to even purchase the software. And that fact, I would propose, is a good sign for a maturing market. emphasis mine). No, not necessarily.

When it comes to your business-to-business website, it’s important to establish credibility and trust with site visitors. You’ve invested in search engine optimization and lots of great, relevant content so that your prospects can find you online. But what is really happening once a prospect lands on your B2B website? Do they see you as credible? Trustworthy?

Trying to market yourself is kind of like being a mom. No matter what you do, you never think it's enough. And, when something goes wrong, you tend to blame yourself - first, last, and always. should have paid more attention. should have corrected that error before it went out. should have - if I were on top of my game- I would have. You're doing what you are able to do right now.

25 B2B marketing thought leaders answer the question "What do you expect to B2B marketers to be doing more of or differently in 2016?" The results are amazing insights around content marketing, achieving business results, alignment, employee advocacy, new technologies, customer experience and more.